To reinvigorate growth in Europe, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi called for more common projects in the European Union (EU). And he emphasized that these efforts need to meet a set of minimum bars: they should “…focus on those actions that deliver tangible and immediately recognisable results… [they] should complement the actions of governments; they should be clearly linked to people’s immediate concerns; they should unequivocally concern matters of European or global significance.”

Exponential increases in automation, computerization and digitization is having a profound impact on many people’s jobs. Branko Milanovic’s recent work on global inequality has shown extent to which the lower-middle class jobs in developed countries are being replaced by technology. In particular, economists argue that middle-skilled, routine-intensive jobs are being hollowed-out. And indeed, in Western European countries and the US there has been a decrease in the intensity of routine tasks – both manual and cognitive. However, in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, the amount of routine cognitive work has been on the rise. And the pay for these workers has increased faster than for high skilled workers. Why is this happening, when in the most advanced economies the opposite is happening?

The former Yugoslavia was mainly known for its not-so-successful and cheap cars, primarily the Yugo. In its review of the 50 worst cars of all time, Time magazine referred to the Yugo GV as the “Mona Lisa of bad cars.”

Nevertheless, the car industry played an important role in the economic development of the socialist Yugoslavia, representing a big employer across all former Yugoslav republics. The onset of war in the early 1990s dealt a significant blow to the car industry there, with most the production facilities closing down by the end of that decade.

And then, in the early 2000s, car companies began opening new facilities in the immediate neighborhood (Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia) and the region began producing world renowned brands such as Audi, Mercedes Benz, Renault, and Suzuki. This represented a new opportunity for manufacturers from the region to enter new supply chains - relying on skilled and experienced labor. On top of this, FIAT also opened a new factory in Serbia, further spurring demand for locally produced automotive parts.

Eight years on from the start of the global economic crisis, close to one quarter of the European Union’s population remains at risk of poverty or social exclusion. But one group in particular stands out: Europe’s growing and marginalized Roma population.

The equivalent figure for Roma children stands at 85 percent in Central and Southeastern Europe. Living conditions of marginalized Roma in this region are often more akin to those in least developed countries than what we expect in Europe.

When development practitioners such as ourselves think of poverty, the EU is not what comes to mind first. While it is true that average incomes are higher in Europe than in most regions of the world, it is also true that the 2008 global financial crisis had a huge impact on the welfare of the most vulnerable in many countries in the region.

The European Union (EU) has settled into a “new normal” of mediocre growth, with real GDP set to expand by about 2 percent in 2015 and in 2016. With sizeable unemployment and still not full capacity utilization, this weak pace of expansion is a clear reminder that there is a more profound and longer-term crisis in Europe than the economic and financial turmoil of 2007-08, the recession in 2012, and the challenges of the southern cone that required large International Monetary Fund programs.

Few of the challenges that have plagued Europe this century have been resolved. Government spending and debt are up, yet potential growth is weak. Fixed investment has declined substantially to lows not seen in decades. Medium-term risks are elevated, but with fiscal space greatly reduced and with monetary policy in unconventional territory, policymakers have precious little ammunition to tackle any future shocks.

PISA measures the skills and knowledge of 15-year-old students in reading, mathematics and science.
Photo: Simone D. McCourtie / World Bank

Investing in people starts by ensuring that graduates leave school with strong basic/foundational skills, such as in reading and mathematics. Such skills are critical for subsequent study, for quickly finding a first job, and for adapting to continuous technological change. But are countries in the EU ready to face that challenge?

Initially, the reasons behind the World Bank’s support of this workshop aimed at facilitating the alignment of national water legislations with the European Union (EU) acquis were not obvious to me. Given, however, that almost all of the countries covered under the Danube Water Program find themselves somewhere on the path towards EU membership or candidacy, it made sense for some of them to convene.

And who could possibly be more suitable to host such an event than the EU’s youngest member state, Croatia?​

So at the end of September, in a small and – despite the suits – rather informal setting at the local World Bank office, around 20 people from several line ministries and water works gathered in a conference room (with a great view of a somewhat rainy Zagreb) for a two-day event. Representatives from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia came together to discuss potential issues and hurdles that they might encounter in the transposition of EU water laws into their national legal frameworks.​

A boat trip from Port Elizabeth to Kingstown, in the Caribbean country of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, is a one-hour trip that locals take several times a day. It was during one of these journeys that the boat of Kamara Jerome, a young Vincentian fisherman, ran out of gas six miles from Bequia City in what is termed locally as the "Bequia Channel." While waiting for help with strong wind gusts and the sun on his head, the idea of developing a boat that would run with wind and solar energy was born. Soon after, the idea became a prototype; a boat using green technology was on the water making 20-year-old Jerome a winner of international innovation competitions and a role model to other Caribbean youth.

In Mexico, young engineer Daniel Gomez runs a multimillion bio-diesel company originally conceived as a research project for his high school chemistry class. Gomez and his partners - Guillermo Colunga, Antonio Lopez, and Mauricio Pareja - founded SOLBEN (Solutions in bio-energy in Spanish) in their early twenties.

Although Daniel and Kamara have different educational backgrounds, they do share one important skill, the ability to identify a problem, develop an innovative solution, and take it to the market. In other words, being an entrepreneur, an alternative to be economically active, that seems to work and not only for a few.

The goal of KNOMAD’s roundtable Return Migration and Re-integration into Croatia and Kosovo was to probe the hypothesis that return migration and homeland reintegration promote development through the transfer of enhanced human and social capital that migrants commonly acquire in their host society integration.